184 Serge Frolov narrator is trying to say here that both routines continued as long as Jehoiachin was alive, the verses must postdate his demise and, unless he died very soon after his release and exaltation (which would be too much of a coincidence, although even today it is by no means unusual to pass away at fifty-five), Evil-Merodach’s fall as well (28). However, the pattern of verbal forms in the fragment suggests that the sense of both verses may be somewhat different. To begin with, v. 30 uses the plain perfect verb hntn; such verbs commonly “represent actions, etc., which were already completed in the past, at the time when other actions or conditions took place (pluperfect)” (29). The sentence is then best understood, in juxtaposition with waw-consecutive imperfects in v. 28 (rbdyw, ˆtyw), as referring to an antecedent action: “And his ration, a permanent one, had been given to him on the king’s behalf all his life”. In other words, v. 30 seems to assert, in agreement with extant Neo-Babylonian documents, that Jehoiachin had been granted a lifelong allowance even before his release and exaltation by Evil- Merodach (30). Such a statement could, obviously, be made in Jehoiachin’s lifetime. In v. 29b, the perfect lka is preceded by a waw. Samuel Driver has compellingly demonstrated that in many cases the temporal connota- tion of this particular form can only be determined contextually; the nature of the relationship between the two clauses that comprise the verse is then of crucial importance (31). Contentwise, v. 29a would properly belong after the account of Jehoiachin’s release in v. 27; by reporting the removal of his prison garments after the mention of his exalted throne in v. 28 the text suggests that the change had something to do with his dining in Evil-Merodach’s presence. From the syntactic point of view, by switching to a perfect form ançw after two waw- consecutive imperfects in v. 28 the narrator detaches v. 29a from them, implicitly lumping it with what follows. If so, v. 29b does not have to be a self-contained note suggested by conventional translations of the verse: “So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table” (RSV). Rather, the clause (28) Thus, e.g., BEGG, “Significance”, 53; MURRAY, “Jehoiachin”, 260. (29) GKC § 106f. Cf. also A. NICCACCI, The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose (JSOTSS 86; Sheffield 1990) 30, 35-41, 52-54, 120-121, 180-181, 188. (30) See n. 23 above. (31) S.R. DRIVER, A Treatise on the Use of Tenses in Hebrew and Some Other Syntactical Questions (The Biblical Resource Series; Grand Rapids – Cambridge – Livonia 1998) 139-142.